Monday, April 27, 2015

Behind Dr. Oz's Curtain

My son's pictures on the Dr. Oz Show, September 9, 2014

What’s Really “Nuts or Normal?”

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”—The Wizard
of Oz, 1939

I don’t watch much television. In the aftermath of September
11, 2001, when I was shocked to see my then four-year old son crash his toy
airplanes into towers built of blocks, I decided we didn’t need cable television
and 24-hour news anymore. All the news was bad. And the rapidly expanding
reality TV genre was worse. My children were raised on a media diet of PBS
(delivered via old-fashioned rabbit ears) and DVD science documentaries we
checked out from the library.

That being said, I’ve been on television more than some
people, usually to talk about the increasingly desperate need to address the
public health crisis of mental illness (one of my children has bipolar
disorder). I’ve appeared on national media including the Today Show, Good
Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Erin Burnett, and Al Jazeera America. I’ve
done numerous local broadcast interviews, most recently in Bismarck, North Dakota and Cincinnati, Ohio.

I was even fortunate to be a guest on the Dr. Oz show last year to
talk about my book. Though I don't watch much television, I knew who he was, mostly from his syndicated column that appears
on Sundays in my local newspaper. And while I was also vaguely aware of controversy about some of the weight loss
methods promoted on his show, I didn’t understand why people wouldn’t just do
their own research. There aren’t many times the word “always” is appropriate,
but I think it’s fair to say that “Get Rich Quick” and “Lose Weight without
Diet or Exercise” promises are almost always too good to be true.

I’m a bit puzzled by the credibility that people attach to television
celebrities. The medium’s first duty is clearly to entertain; daytime
television never even pretended that it had an obligation to educate. What are your ethical obligations, then, if
you’re a daytime television celebrity physician who calls himself “America’s
Doctor”? How do you entertain your audience while also upholding your
Hippocratic oath to protect the individual patient’s health and privacy?

In light of this flurry of Dr. Oz criticism, including calls for his resignation from the staff of Columbia University’s medical school, my
fearless friend and fellow mental health advocate Janine Francolini of the
Flawless Foundation has been quick to remind the public of the Dr. Oz show’s truly
terrible 2012 series “Are You Normal or Nuts?” in which a panel of “top
psychologists” evaluated audience members’ mental health concerns.

This truly tasteless show echoed an equally tacky Reader’s
Digest annual feature by the same name, which trivializes the tremendous suffering
experienced by individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness and their
families. For example, the 2013 "Normal or Nuts" article led with this charming introduction: “Calling
all neurotics, paranoids, and phobics! Our panel of experts says you might not
be as loony as you think in this fan-favorite feature.”

And people wonder why there’s still stigma attached to
mental illness.

Like Janine, I want Dr. Oz to use his celebrity status to
promote mental health. In my personal experience with him, that’s exactly what
Dr. Oz did.

“I’m a dad, and this is important to me,” he told me before
we began taping a segment discussing my experience as a parent of a child who
has bipolar disorder. His approach to my family’s story was overwhelmingly
positive, highlighting the tremendous gains my son has made since his diagnosis
in May 2013. The audience applauded when I shared that my son has now written a
book of his own, a science fiction novel where the Greek gods all have a mental
illness that is actually a super power. This is what the correct diagnosis and
treatment can mean to parents and children suffering with mental illness. It
means hope.

Dr. Oz has tremendous power to shape public opinion about
mental health and mental illness. How can we encourage him to use his power for
good, like he did for me and my son? When it comes to mental illness, sadly,
too many Americans are still like star-struck Dorothy, believing in the all-powerful
image of Oz, not willing to look behind the curtain and acknowledge the truth.

I have an idea for this season’s “Are You Nuts or Normal?”
producers. Dr. Oz invites panelists to rate people like Judge Michael Bohren, who
refused to authorize medical treatment for 12-year old Morgan Geyser, diagnosed
with paranoid schizophrenia and locked up away from her family and denied
medical treatment for her brain disease for almost a year.

Nuts or normal?

Dr. Oz interviews the six police officers who tasered
130-pound Natasha McKenna, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and asks them to
explain why she died in custody.

Nuts or normal?

Finally, Dr. Oz presents British parliamentary candidate
Chamali Fernando so that experts can discuss her suggestion that people with
mental illness should wear color coded wristbands.

Nuts or normal?

The way we fail to treat children and adults with mental
illness in this country is what is really crazy. It’s also expensive, not only
in financial terms, but also in lives lost, in dreams shattered. Dr. Oz could
rebuild his credibility by focusing his attention on this public health crisis,
by providing help—and hope—to millions who are suffering with serious mental illness.

It is not just the mental health system that has to change, but the education system. Children who have experienced both Trauma or trauma, are referred to mental health because of their behavior in school. Treatment is to meet the educators' needs, not the child or the family. Many hands get tied that way. If medication is postponed with therapy only, and the behavior doesn't improve quickly enough, the child is at risk of placement anyway.......Our major public institution where children spend most of their days, is not equipped to respond to symptoms that manifest as behaviors. Everything is labeled defiance and treated with punishment. It is a tragedy of epic proportion.GE 3S

About Me

Liza Long, aka the Anarchist Soccer Mom, is a writer, educator, mental health advocate, and mother of four children. She loves her Steinway, her husband, her kids,and her day job, not necessarily in that order. Her book "The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness" from Hudson Street Press is available in bookstores and online. The views expressed on this blog are entirely her own and in no way reflect the views of her employer (or anyone else, for that matter).